Why don't you just fade away?

Emotion a hurdle for Pittman

By Jenny McAsey

March 22, 2006

JANA Pittman is scared, worried the massive Melbourne Cricket Ground crowd that has been so supportive of every other Australian athlete will boo her as she lines up tonight for the first heat of the 400m hurdles.

Chris Rawlinson, Pittman's coach and fiance, says she has spent so much time crying during her troubled build-up that he fears it will cost her an Australian record in the final tomorrow night.

"She is an incredible athlete but her performance just depends on how the crowd treat her when she comes out into the stadium," Rawlinson said yesterday. "She is scared of hearing someone boo her. So I am just hoping everyone is behind her 100 per cent because she wants to run for them."

Pittman is red-hot favourite to win the event, and she should easily progress from tonight's heats to the final.

But Rawlinson, the defending 400m hurdles Games champion, who is competing for England, said Pittman had wasted a lot of emotional energy since the selection trials in Sydney last month.

"She has done an awful lot of crying," he said. "When you see her on the track she comes across as very strong. She is an incredible athlete but she is a really soft person at heart who wants to be liked."

It began when Pittman was drawn into a war of words with Victoria runner Tamsyn Lewis. The rivalry played out on the track when Pittman came last, more than a second behind Lewis, in the flat 400m final at the trials.

Lewis then spoke of how much she had wanted to beat "the bitch" Pittman. The saga continued when Pittman said Lewis was creating an evil atmosphere in the athletics team, and both women were warned by Commonwealth Games officials that they could be thrown off the team if the fighting did not stop.

In a candid interview with The Australian on the eve of the Games, Pittman said she felt the media had portrayed her as "the villain" in the spat and she despaired about her poor image.

She has also been hampered by hamstring tightness which caused her to withdraw from a race at Olympic Park and also the Queen's baton relay last week.

As Pittman lines up for one of the biggest competitions of her life, she is struggling to focus on the task of defending the gold medal she won four years ago in Manchester.

"The media pressure has had an effect on her," Rawlinson said after qualifying third-fastest for the men's semi-finals.

"I would be lying if I said it hadn't.

"It hasn't helped preparations. She can still run 53 seconds (in the final) but with the hamstring and all the crying she has done because of this ... she would have broken the Aussie record.

"But as it is, she will be close, but I am not sure if she will."

Pittman's best time is 53.22sec, which she ran to win gold at the 2003 world championships, but she is still chasing the Australian 400m hurdles record of 53.17sec set by her friend and mentor Debbie Flintoff-King when she won at the 1988 Olympics.

Rawlinson said Pittman did not handle it well and there was no denying it may have robbed her of the chance to run faster than ever.

"I am trying to teach her not to care ... but she is one of those people who likes to have the support of other people and if she doesn't feel she's got that, it doesn't get the best out of her.

"Just the emotional energy really, wondering what people are saying behind her back. I told her not to read the newspapers any more and just think about what she needs to do on the track."

Rawlinson, who has been in a relationship with Pittman since the Athens Olympics, and has coached her since early 2005, said he was confident she would still win gold, with the only real threat coming from improving English hurdler, Nicola Sanders.

"I don't think it will stop her winning, she is an incredible athlete. I ran with her the other day and had to pick up speed because she was pushing me."

The pair will marry in Victoria a few days after the Games finish.

The Australian